I have been living for two years in Ireland now. One of me best shots, I took at Giants Causeway. Wikipedia will tell more about GC, but my suggestion, go there on a windy day, when the waves crash in. Having these stones in front will get you amazing shots. Here is mine:

hm on preview here it looks like the Link will not appear full due to the german letter ae. Here is a second way to get to the picture: click on upper level link http://web.mac.com/maik/Main_Page/BdM/BdM.html and then click on "A Giant‘s Suprise - September 2007. By the way my Page is in german, but I hope the Pictures stands for itself.

I love how the two induviduals stand in front of that fierce water (the splash at its highest point) and seem to almost confront it. I can almost see the wave having a soul of its own and two arms raising diagonally to intimidate them. The contrast is very captivating and so is the sharpness and the different forms on the ground. I also like how the sky adds to the dramatic effect of the photograph. ... just wow! : )

The problem, as you say, appears to be the letter 'ä' and also the apostrophe. There is a simple workaround for this which seems to work in both Firefox and IE under Windows (not sure about Mac browsers) and involves opening the page in the browser and then copying the URL from the browser's address window where it has been translated thus:

Hi Maik, welcome to the Cameralabs forums! I hope you don't mind - I edited your message so the photo appeared in your post and also created a new topic for it here!

I think the photo looks great! Tell us more about the settings used and any post-processing...

Gordon

Hey Gordon, thanks for your help editing this thread. About Post Processing, I just used two Layers of the original in Photoshop and played around with the contrast a little, I needed two layers to be able work on different contrast for the stones, waves and sky. You can see the thin dark line at the border between stones and waves, that was the critical point merging two contrast pictures into one. I tried to keep that line as thin as possible. The positiv effect is has that it looks like a shadow that was all. I am not a pro, by the way on PS, just use it to play around with it a little from time to time. While I processed this Picture I was getting more and more happy, seeing the great atmosphere it finally got.

When I am back to work (on holiday now) I can check the original for Exif Infos. Picture was taken somewhere in august 2007, but as far as I remember I was shooting on Shutter Priority Mode. On this one I used the Alpha100 and a tamron 17-50mm.

I love how the two induviduals stand in front of that fierce water (the splash at its highest point) and seem to almost confront it. I can almost see the wave having a soul of its own and two arms raising diagonally to intimidate them. The contrast is very captivating and so is the sharpness and the different forms on the ground. I also like how the sky adds to the dramatic effect of the photograph. ... just wow! : )

I'd love to see more of your photographs !!! this one is great!

- Andy -

Hey Andy, thanks for your kind words on my picture. I was suprised as well, when I saw the shape of the waves, looking like two arms scaring the father and his son. I like as well, that the shot captures the moment, where the son realizes the wave and is about to run away.

I was about to play around with taking picture from the basalt stones and the waves, trying to find out how close I can get to the water and where I find the best perspective, when this father and his son arrived. First of all I was kind of angry, that he did not realize that I was shooting in that direction. So I stood and wanted to wait for them to leave. Then I saw they were getting closer and closer to the water. Finally I realised that between the time they arrived and the time they went closer to the water, we did not had high waves and had low wind for several minutes, but I knew further and higher waves were coming again, obviously the father and son did not. So I smiled a little inside, prepaired for the next wave and just waited up.

The fact that then the photo has become so nice, has pleased me of course and absolutely more than the both in front we had several tourists at the giants causeway as usuall, standing behind or left from the pictures, so after this wave we all had big laughters

I've once been to Staffa, an island off Scotland, which is very similar to the Giant's Causeway (and according to myth, the other end of it). It is home to the impressive Fingal's Cave. Unfortunately, I wasn't into photography at the time, so have no photos.

wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WHAT a great shot....even untouched, the original in pristine form is striking, but, I like your post processing skills, makes the transition from a great shot, to a hauntingly memorable image. It looks like the waves are hands reaching out for you...don't stand too close!!!